panning stereo acoustic guitar

Picture the scene ...
 
I've recorded an acoustic guitar in (pseudo) stereo. Two cardiods spaced, one around the twelfth fret (right), one to the side of the sound hole (left). The levels of the tracks are fairly equal. So I have two mono tracks. I pan one track fully left and one track fully right. I then set up a stereo buss for the two mono guitar tracks.
 
My question is:
 
If I want to narrow the stereo width of the guitar and put that narrower guitar so that it sounds more to the left of the stereo field, do I?
 
a. pan the left mono track say 80% left and the right mono track say 20% right and leave the stereo buss panned to centre? or ...
 
b. pan the left mono track say 50% left and the right mono track say 50% right and then pan the stereo buss say 50% left? or ...
 
c. pan the left mono track say 50% left and the right mono track say 50% right and increase the volume of the left mono track ?
Thanks

Hi gswitz
They all sound ok, but I was wondering if there was a specific (theoretically correct) way to do it.

I generally don't think to pan at the bus and left centered it just reflects the track pans, but heck try it both ways. Also - there is the Hass pan effect -if one mic is slightly closer (an inch might do it), it would tend to pull it's image towards it.

It's not scientific. It's what sounds best.

Hi, sounds like you are trying to position the image of the guitar track to sit well within your mix. hope i get the idea correct first...

if you want to do this it may be better sum both mono tracks to a single mono track. the reason for this is 
1.     12th fret mic - is used to record the slips and slide of the fingers and strings. it will still pick up a little from the guitar sound hole.
2.     sound hole mic - is used to record the plucking and acoustics directly from the guitar body. it will also pick up a little of the slips and slides from above.


by panning, you will get two different sounds on the left and right.


so if you sum to a single mono track, you will have exactly the same sound on both sides. with that, you may then experiment with the sitting of the track with whatever tools you may be comfortable with. they could be simple pan all the way up to phasing. 


you could think of this as similar to using 2 mics on a single guitar amp.


hope this helps...

When the mics are spaced the stereo image is usually stronger. (Although it does depend on how far apart they are) But they may not collapse into mono very well. There could be some comb filtering and the guitar sound may not sound that great in mono.

XY or MS where the mic diaphragms are in the same spot will still create a reasonable stereo image but will not have any problems if collapsed into mono.

I have found that stereo acoustic guitar sounds are over rated and in the end you don't need it so much. By the time other stuff comes into the picture you wont hear it that much anyway. You never listen to an acoustic guitar 6 inches from the strings do you so creating stereo images is not that important. You tend to hear it further away and then it becomes mono anyway. Once other elements are in as well you find that the stereo image is more hassle than its worth. And the OP is already talking about narrowing the image anyway.

A much better effect is to get the acoustic guitarist to play the same (rhythm) part twice and just pan those parts hard left and hard right. And if they are good they will get the timing very spot on and it won't sound like two guitar parts but more rather like one.

One decent mic a little out from the 12th fret usually does the trick and is hard to beat. What is WAY more important is a decent guitar and player.